Day 13: Towel Rod Labels, Monogrammed Cups, Flower Push Pin

My "Motivated Moms 2011" app had me clean out one kitchen drawer yesterday, and I chose the silverware drawer since it is the one that bugs me most.  When I cleaned it out, I found MOUSE POOP!  So I then cleaned out EVERY drawer in my kitchen, which totally needed to be done, but I felt spent after the project that was supposed to be small.  Today, I saw on my list that I should clean the bottom shelf of my refrigerator, and I took that to mean that I had to finally clean out whatever spilled and fossilized underneath the crisping drawers.....So I emptied both drawers, pulled them apart, washed all of it, and pulled out the bottom shelf, washed that, and washed the bottom of the refrigerator and the walls up to the second shelf......that was also a bigger project than expected.  I guess that is why the app is called "Motivated Moms" instead of the app I must have been living life by which would be entitled something like "I'll get to it if I am not too tired" or "NOT Beaver Cleaver's Mom."  With physical therapy this morning also, today became a crafting day of very small and random projects.  Above are monogrammed cups for my kids to keep their retainers and toothbrushes in so they don't sit all over the counter (when I am wiping it EVERY DAY in accordance with my MM2011 list).  In the past, there has been one cup, blue plastic, probably full of BHP or whatever chemical leached by old-school plastic, and both kids and the occasional adult (sick or not) all shared.  It is gross only if you actually thing about what you drink out of after brushing your teeth.  Scraps of paper, the Cricut, diamond glaze, and about 2 minutes solved this issue.  Now each kid has a cup clearly labeled.  Whew!  Now orderly life may continue=)

 Another issue in our household is the picking up of towels after bath time.  Following back surgery in April, and a prolonged wait for back surgery starting as far back as January 2010, hubby installed a towel wrack that the kids could reach and thus, they may also be in charge of hanging their own towels......reasonable expectations for school age children...I don't know what ever possessed me to pick towels up off the floor at all.  So the issue has become, which towel belongs to which child, and which child did not properly hang up the towel.....so again, scrap paper, the Cricut, and a "3M Self-Sealing Laminated Tag."  VOILA, problem solved.

 My last very tiny project was working with some new products advertised by Archivers to use punches and some stylus tools (made by a company named McGill) to make a variety of 3D handmade paper flowers.  Hubby Robert built a desk for daughter Sylvia and it has a cork board on it for her to post all of her stuff up.  I just remembered to buy push pins for her a couple of days ago, but could only find boring clear ones.  These make them fancy and cute, just like my little Sylvia!

Day 12: Sock Monkey Make-over and Coffee Candles for Valentines

After my hubby harassed me over using his very sadly droopy (but warm) socks to make a sock monkey, and after he insisted that the sock monkey be his personal sock monkey, I couldn't help but spend part of my afternoon adorning the sock monkey with a few features unique to my hubby.....If you could see the beaded eyes clearly, you would see they are brown with gold flecks, just like the lovely eyes of my beloved, and hubby has always worn glasses, and he has a beard and mustache (the last 7 years or so), and he was born in Brazil.  I managed to scrounge up enough wool roving in appropriate colors from my lovely friend Jen Cuff (strawberrymoonfibers.etsy.com) to felt the mustache, beard, and Brazilian flag over his heart.  I didn't tell him about my day, but left sock monkey posed on his side of the bed to surprise him when he returned from work.  I took the kids to piano lessons, so I didn't get to hear his reaction, but he promises that it made him laugh.  I shall craft a Jerri sock monkey later I think.  They can keep the cats company on the bed while we are doing other things.

The other craft for the day came from my love of the smell of coffee.  I made myself a cup of coffee this morning and rather than throw out the coffee grounds after they were used, I added them to hot wax and made candles out of them in these cute little heart shaped bowls I found at Michaels.  I added some cocoa powder to the mix as well, and the candles smell great now.  It remains unknown if it will fill the house with the smell of burnt coffee when I light one up.  I will get back to you all on that one!  For now, just think they are cute, and I hope that it warms the hearts of the special people in my life that will get them as gifts.

Day 11: SOCK MONKEY

I downloaded this app on my iPad called "Motivated Moms 2011" which is a fantastically overpriced app whose only hope is that it will listen to its reviews asking for users to be able to customize their own chores.  It is a list of things to do around the house that you can check off as you go.  In theory, following this list, there are daily items, and then those on rotation.....for example, "laundry" is every day and "clean out purse/wallet" just came up for the first time today (I have only used it for a couple of days now.....I like lists, specifically checking things off of lists, and all the better if I don't actually have to make the list first).  At any rate, since I did laundry both yesterday and today, I am sort of getting to the bottom of Mt. Vesuvius which is otherwise known as the laundry pile of a household of 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs, and 2 cats.  So, now I have a pile of socks to evaluate.  The kids' socks have a huge pile to go to good will as their feet have really grown since I last bought white socks, and I ran across a couple of pair of warm socks that have absolutely no more stretch left in them.  SOCK MONKEYS HERE I COME!  My hubby kindly pointed out that since they were his socks, he will now be the proud owner of their sock monkey reincarnation.  I finished the first sock monkey today and I vow to add embellishments from other scraps I have around the house tomorrow.  For now, he hears evil, but doesn't see or speak it yet.

Don't even look at the mess on my work space....YIKES!

Day 10: Beaded Beads Continued

I figured that it would be to the point to make a little pair of earrings that I could slide any pair of beaded beads onto in order to coordinate with a variety of outfits.  I think I will just make a bunch of these little things out of the ends of bead stashes in order to clear out some more beading containers for GASP.....more beads=)  Maybe tomorrow I will be brave enough to post a picture of my bead stash drawer....maybe.

Day 9: Beaded Beads

As promised, no paper projects today....however, I did make notebook covers still today.  These are beaded beads.....and they only call for 12 of a similar size bead.....so for the last few beads of each color, or the last few beads of a certain size but the colors are mixes.....these can be cute.  My daughter went to a bead camp at The Bead Monkey over winter break, and this was but one of their many projects.  This is just a right angle weave, and in the end, you can string these on just about anything.  I used 4mm bicones here, as I had some leftover from a bracelet I made for a friend for Christmas.  Now I have just a few left of each color, and while I could just pop them on an end pin and hang them on ear wires, this was a new one for me.  My daughter made some with seed beads, and my son made some with shiny mixed colored square beads.  I think that this could work with just about anything from very elegant to silly playful!  Only took a second......also my kind of project!

Day 8: Only Scraps....and Diamond Glaze

Today, I worked on the notepad covers for the 5x7 lined pads, and I only used scraps....some scraps were the negative of flowers I cut-out yesterday for the bowl, but most were scrap negatives from my kids going nuts with the paper flowers.....either way, only scraps were used.

On this one, I used diamond glaze all over the outside to add some strength to the top layer of paper since in many places, there was very little connecting the paper to itself with all of the flowers cut out.  I wasn't terribly happy with the product, but I liked it better after adding some detailing with a Sharpie.....

This one is just scraps from the basket and paper box projects with a few corners saved to make paper flower cut-outs.  These are both cute and made entirely of scraps I would have thrown away before this project started.  I am now completely out of scraps.....and I am not counting the endless stream of crafting scraps made by my children since they are grounded from TV, video games, and Harry Potter books on CD.  Grounded children make a lot of paper scraps!  Tomorrow, I promise, no paper crafts!

Day 7: Glass Flower Bowl

 Today, I piddled most of the day, not actually accomplishing much.  I wasn't feeling good most of the day (no doubt paying for my activity yesterday) and so I sat and sorted through my folder of small scraps of paper.  I cut out TONS of little flowers on my Cricut, most of which went toward entertaining my kids after they returned from school.  I had a bowl I bought on sale from Target for $1 right after Christmas, and I decided to use some diamond glaze to glue flowers to the outside of the bowl.  It turned out to be very interesting.  I might completely go overboard and add more flowers tomorrow, but for now, I like the space between.  I met my friend "Diamond Glaze" at The Bead Monkey as they have some little project ideas which apply small pieces of paper to the backs of glass tiles and the add a pin or bail to make a pendant.  My kids love this project, and I confess, that it is a bit of an addition of mine.  I love to fine a little snippet of cool paper or fabric and display it under its looking glass.  Somehow, like framing something simple behind glass makes it viewable as more artistic.  I don't think I will make a series of this sort of thing, but it was fun today.  Play is learning for adults too!  I started out with no idea of the end product, and several hours later, I have something different than I started with.  It is colorful, whimsical, and my eye is drawn around it.....so I deem it to be good.  Next time, I might use strips of paper, torn up, wet a little so that it would form to the bowl more freely.....I would probably water down the early layers of diamond glaze too, and then seal it all with a concentrated layer or two for protection after it was thoroughly dried.